Tag: book blog

Holy moly, the last time either of us posted a book round-up was summer 2019? I have a bunch of ARCs to review! I’m not going to post every single one just because that’d be so many, but here are some of the highlights within the past half year.

Note: ARCs have been received in exchange for an honest review from their publishers through NetGalley, and a number of these ARCs will be reviewed in full at a later date.

My short (NetGalley) review:

OK… I read through the entire book, and will do my best to avoid spoilers.

I love me some thrillers and stories that keep me flipping the pages to figure out what’s going on. Eventually, I ended up flipping through the pages in frustration in an attempt to get through the rest of it and find out what the heck is going on. It ends up feeling like a cop-out ending, and I felt so irritated that I spent the day reading the entire thing.

The authors writing isn’t terrible, which frustrated me even more… the direction it went just made me go “huh?” I enjoyed Kate, though did find the characters annoying at times, but some of the other characters were just like … there.

Unfortunately this isn’t a story that I would personally recommend.

The Dark Continent by Scott ReardonPublished by Aspen PressPublished on 01/28/2020My rating 2/5

My NetGalley Review:

OK, so there was a point when reading this book where I just went… what happened. The first half really had me going with a horror thriller kind of vibe, trying to figure out what the heck the researchers were doing and all of this backstory, but then the second half left me scratching my head.

The book itself: Like it was really going somewhere with all of the “who did what” and “what happened here” among all the other things going on. It gave me the creepy vibes that I look for when I read horror books. I liked that! I also felt like I didn’t have to go back to read the first book and was just able to jump cheerily in to reading this one, which I’m grateful for.

The second half of the book was downhill from there, though. I wasn’t a fan of the fact that it just threw everything out of the boat and went a different direction, nor was I really happy with the sudden incredibly patriotic theme that overtook the rest of the book. It was grating, and it didn’t feel like it added anything additional to the plot this way, feeling more like an interjection of some weird feelings just because the author could (e.g. the note about the French Canadians being “backwardly cheerful” and the tidbit on tolerance/diversity).

TLDR: Not sure if I can recommend reading this just for the first half alone.

My NetGalley Review:

So, if you know/follow me at all (likely you don’t but that’s okay), you’ll know that I write quite a bit about celiac disease given that I was only diagnosed within the recent past. Back then the gluten free diet was becoming a hot, trendy thing, and celiac disease was only starting to get more media attention. I had no idea what the heck the disease was until I was diagnosed.

This would’ve been an extremely helpful book for someone new to celiac disease or who doesn’t understand what it is.

Rather than just being a cookbook, the author discusses exactly WHAT celiac disease is, and bonus points to the author for pointing out that ***we can’t just have people picking crumbs off our salad***. She talked about STIGMA, which is a HUGE issue, and talking about the emotional/psychological issues relating to being diagnosed.

So this isn’t just a cookbook, it’s really an introduction to being diagnosed and how to handle the weight of the disease, which is HUGE. I mean — no one talks about the fact that you can’t just eat out anymore and you have to shell out a LOT of money for new equipment when you’re diagnosed. It’s kind of like you just get told “stop eating gluten” and that’s it.

The ONLY issue I have is that she notes that oats are OK for celiac disease if labeled gluten-free, but it has been consistently found that gluten-free optical-sorted oats are not safe for celiac sufferers and purity-protocol oats are really the best option.

I’m constantly on the look-out for GOOD horror and thriller books, especially if they’re paranormal! If you have any you’d like to suggest, leave me your recommendation in the comments. I’ve been really disappointed with the reads that I’ve come across lately.

My first-look review:

When I finished reading this book, I found myself to be more irritated than scared or unnerved. The author’s writing style wasn’t terrible, and I did enjoy it, but sometimes found it confusing and really hated the large amount of questions left unanswered by the end of the novel. I felt a bit bait and switched by the ending of the book, but can’t say any more without spoiling it.

What I liked:

There was a feeling of confusion and a bit of horror at the beginning as you follow along with Greg to figure out what’s going on inside of the building. There’s some other things going on in the building that are pretty ~creepy~ and unexplainable.

The author’s writing isn’t terrible — which makes me sad about the low rating. I feel that this needed some more work because this could be adequately wrapped up in one book.

What I disliked:

I WAS SO CONFUSED THROUGHOUT MOST OF THIS BOOK. OK, sorry for the caps, but I found myself extremely irritated by the time I reached the ending (and then found out this was going to have another novel after?). I felt like I could’ve made some assumptions based on the information given, but it felt like long shots because the author was not entirely clear on a lot of points.

The spooky concept isn’t entirely explored — and that sucked. I picked this book up because it was billed as a psychological horror, yet found myself not very horrified. I felt interested at the beginning of the story. However, as the story progressed, I was mainly just trying to reach the end to see if any of the strings attached anywhere and found myself disappointed.

The problem is that a lot of the things that I disliked about this story are things that would spoil the story entirely. I’m not comfortable exactly doing so, but I will just say that I was disappointed because it felt like it was going in one direction in the beginning and suddenly veered to a different one towards the end. Jeeze!

Who should read this?

Maybe if you like horror? I’m not sure if I can recommend this book as it is, unfortunately. 😦

Another book round-up! We’ve been super busy handling some work-related drama, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to blog between resting and just all of the other stuff. I have a lot of recent books that I’ve read through and want to share with you all. 🙂 Unfortunately, I got a real hit-or-miss group of books to share this time, so hold on tight…

Jade City by Fonda LeePublished by OrbitMy rating: 5/5

I need to do a full review of this series because I seriously just got thrown off my other hobbies and immediately got sucked into this story. My cuz and hubs has been raving about this book (and talking about it and spoiling it in front of me, but jokes on them, I forgot what they said), so I finally said FINE. I’ll try it. I don’t really read fiction but I’ll do it.

Absolutely no regrets. I’m a sucker for yakuza/gang stories, and this is right up that alleyway, along with heavy Asian inspiration and fantasy and romance and hnnng. It’s all a hapa lady could hope for. It really had me holding my breath and feeling anxious at some points, so it was a great ride.

I’m now onto Jade War, and really hope to meet Fonda Lee for signatures at some point……..

My NetGalley review:

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.

I’m a healthcare nut — I study healthcare, work in healthcare, and live in the industry. So when I picked this up I was looking for an interesting read on the industry, but found myself quickly skipping through pages.

I found this to be a really dry read. It feels like it’s meant for clinical staff, mainly physicians, to understand the state of the healthcare industry in the United States. There’s a lot of explaining of terminology that I already knew working back end but that someone in the clinical realm often doesn’t know.

While I think this might be a good educational read for someone with little exposure to healthcare, I quickly found myself bored with the content.

My NetGalley review:

*** I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. ***

As someone getting into sewing, I’ve seen Nani Iro pop up quite a bit. There are some basic clothes to make, but a lot of the clothes are of what’s popular in Japan right now: big and baggy shirts, dresses and pants. There’s nothing wrong with that trend (esp as someone who does follow some parts of that fashion), but not everyone may be interested in these styles.

Thankfully, I was happy to see that they had smaller sizes, which has been a struggle when looking for patterns for some reason.

Each project is laid out in detail. You get finished sizes, the materials needed, and how to lay the patterns on the fabric to cut the pieces. The construction steps are very detailed but easy to understand for even a newer sewer, especially given that they include illustrations on what needs to be done. There’s not a lot of guesswork that needs to happen when putting the clothing together.

I reviewed some cookbooks and craft books within the past few weeks as well, but they’re not coming out for a few months so it’s a tad too early. I’m really excited for some of the things coming out, especially since one has a really good cookie recipe! (Making gluten-free baked goods is an ART y’all.)

I’m open to any suggestions for books similar to Jade City/Jade War. I love yakuza/gang family fiction and manga, so anything up that alley I’d be willing to look at. 🙂

This is just a quick book round-up of the books I’ve completed reading (and haven’t done a full review on yet) and ones that are in progress. I have a lot of outstanding books still in my TBR that I’m slowly getting through… and for some reason I keep getting more to add to my list. 🙂 That added up with a busy work schedule makes for slow reading.

Note: ARCs have been received in exchange for an honest review from their publishers through NetGalley, and a number of these ARCs will be reviewed in full at a later date.

My short (NetGalley) review:

If you liked House or like to follow any type of medical mysteries, this book is for you. This book is chock full of a variety of short experiences about patients with weird problems being diagnosed with a variety of illnesses that aren’t always what they seem. Not every story is a happy one, but in real life it is unfortunately what happens.

I found myself flipping through a lot of the stories in one sitting. They’re interesting enough to just keep going, and each experience is so unique you just want to see what the next person’s experience was. It is written in such a way that a person doesn’t need a lot of medical knowledge, just some basic understanding of the human body and disease, to get what’s going on.

This is definitely a unique read, and as someone who dealt with being misdiagnosed for almost a decade, I felt somewhat vindicated by the commentary and stories in the book. Would definitely suggest reading this.

Released June 5, 2012

Redshirts by John ScalziPublished by Tor BooksMy rating: 4/5

My short review:

For some reason I found this in the horror section at a Half Price Books, and this is totally not a horror story (but still good nonetheless). If you know anything about Star Trek, you’ll likely know about the idea behind red shirts, or also known as dispensable extras on the television series.

So with that in mind, this book was a fun read that had some unexpectedly emotional feels along with some interesting concepts and theories around the whole red shirt concept. I found it to be fun! This was also my first Scalzi read and got a kick out of him just writing that a character died, straight up, no frills.

Some of the bits of his writing are a little hard to get through, like some of the long character conversations going back and forth between multiple characters, but I found it to be an enjoyable read that complaint aside.

Released July 18, 2019

The Watanabe Name by Sakura NobeyamaPublished by Black Rose WritingMy rating: 4/5

You like drugs? Public health? Policy? Politics? Interested in the current opioid epidemic? This is a good fit to itch those likes.

I was expecting a book more focused on personal stories of drug users and fentanyl, but what I got instead was an interesting telling of the drug situation not only in the United States but around the world as well. The history around designer drugs is told in length.

The international politics, especially between the US and China, is discussed and made me think about whether there were some historical reasons around China’s current lax attitude about the drug labs.

I found this to be very educational, especially as I start taking classes on population health and societal health issues. Would recommend. It’s not a dry read like some other drug books I’ve picked up recently.

Be ready for more books soon, and maybe an update to by webcomic for the first time in half a year! 🙂 Anyone reading anything they’d like to suggest I add to my big pile of TBRs?

The rules:

Answer the questions the best you can. If you don’t use NetGalley, you can substitute other sites or places where you get books!

Tag a few people to do this too

Auto-Approved: Who’s one author whose books you automatically want to read, regardless of what they’re about?

I don’t have anyone whose books I’d really like to get auto-approved just yet, but I’d really like to get auto-approved for publishers that do health non-fiction and interesting thrillers. I just got auto-approved for one publisher which does interesting thrillers, so I’m looking forward to seeing what I might want to read. 🙂

Request: What makes you want to request a book that you see on NetGalley?

The cover is definitely the first thing that makes me want to request a book! Second is the title, and third is the description of the book. If the description of the book is good and the other two are terrible, I’ll at least request it because it might be a good read regardless.

Feedback Ratio: Do you review every book you read? If not, how do you decide what books to review?

Just about! I make it a point to review most of the books that I read. The ones that I don’t read are the ones that I accidentally request without paying attention, and these tend to be religious books. Otherwise I’ll at least give the book a shot and try to read it through, though it doesn’t always make for good reading. I’ve given some pretty low reviews on NetGalley.

Badges: If you could create your own badge to display on your blog, what would it be for?

“I made a mistake and requested too many books and have too many books in my queue oh goodness S.O.S.”

Wish for It: What’s one book that you are absolutely dying to read?

I have quite a few books in my TBR NetGalley list to read and review! Mainly non-fiction health books that I’m really looking forward to.

Since I like to share the love, I tag the following people to complete this tag!

My NetGalley review:

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.

This is a book that starts extremely sluggishly but picks up and goes full-throttle until the end, keeping you reading for more to figure out what happens next. I was really slogging through the first bit and was super close to DNF’ing it until a major event finally occurred. The rest of the novel makes up for the slow start.

The Watanabe Name is a thriller/historical fiction about a traditional Japanese family that has some notoriety due to the war. When the patriarch is found dead, the story really unfolds into a thrilling telling around the family itself and who might have wanted him gone.

Those who are familiar with the atrocities around the Japanese occupation will understand references in the book, especially to some heinous, problematic aspects of the occupation.

What I liked:

If you’re familiar with the Asian family hierarchy, you’ll find that the author does a very good job of illustrating the frustration of respect and the politics around handling traditional relatives. You can really feel yourself getting frustrated on behalf of the different family members (ok, maybe not everyone) for the way that the patriarch handles everything with an iron fist… just like in real life!

If you’re not familiar with Asian culture, the beginning of the book (albeit a bit slow paced) will be a good introduction and guide you right in to the mentality around decisions made throughout the story, which is incredibly important.

This book dives into Japanese/Chinese history around the time of the wars earlier in the 20th century. I felt that she did a good job of portraying the situation, including tidbits about some notorious parts of the occupation that were extremely problematic, and tied it into the mystery of who killed the general. I told Mr. Renzol that it was appreciated that she didn’t glaze over or trivialize the treatment of people during the occupation.

She also did a great job of humanizing all of the characters: most of the characters had reasons for acting the way they did, like being selfish or playing political games to get the desired outcome they’re looking for. I found myself sympathizing with different characters, especially as the mystery unfolded and the killer(s) became obvious.

What I disliked:

Trigger warning: this is a book that includes portrayal of the occupation by Japan and includes violence, sexual assault, and related topics.

The first part of the book was extremely slow to me, but it may be because I’m already familiar with the family hierarchy and Asian culture in general, so it was a lot of rehashing of previous knowledge. I felt that some of it could have been shortened, but for Western readers without that background it might be important.

The time-shifting between the past, near-past, and present was a bit confusing to me. There was a point where I was reading a chapter on the present but first thought it was the near-past and had to double-check what time period the chapter was set in. I would actually like if the author had grouped them together by time periods AND the date to make it easier to follow along.

Who should read this?

If you enjoy an Asian-style thriller mystery with adult content, take a peek at this book! I had a slight inkling of who the killer(s) might have been, but the story was interesting enough to keep me reading until it was confirmed.

Jade war is rad.

That said, if you haven’t read Jade City, consider checking out my review on this site, and more importantly go read the book! I make it a point to remove as many spoilers as possible, but some things have changed a lot between the last book and this one, so some spoiling is inevitable. Jade War is in a nutshell, more Jade City with more of pretty much everything from before. This is a good thing.

It’s been a bit over a year since we last found ourselves in
the Asian-inspired island country of Kekon, specifically in the capital city of
Janloon. Much is the same from the previous book, the two largest guilds, No
Peak and the Mountain, have fought to a stalemate after the events of the
previous books. At this time, there’s an uneasy armistice, with the civilian
population reeling along with the clans after the war, there’s been time to
rebuild. Fighting still happens, but it’s nothing on the scale of the previous
clan war. This, however, doesn’t mean the war is done by a long shot or that
nothing has changed.

Unlike the first book, I have been well aware of this book
from the word go. I have personally been incredibly hyped up to read this book.
I’ve heard of similar buzz from the people I speak to, and I believe it’s
delivered on that hype and more. Fonda Lee has somehow managed to not only
improve in her general writing, but also improve on the believability and
growth of the characters that make the move from Jade City to Jade War. It’s
something I haven’t seen many authors pull off this successfully, and to me, it’s
one of the best complements I could give an author.

Since this is the 2nd book in the series, there’s
less world building active for Kekon. It’s still the steamy, Asian-inspired island
country that I remember fondly from the first book, alive with the people of
Kekon. We even learn a bit more about the less-clan influenced side of the
country. More importantly though, we get a look at other countries in the world.
By now it’s obvious that the world feels similar to ours, except their many
nations war puts them in a situation to our world post WWII. First, Espenia, a
country one could say is an equivalent to the United States. This country is a
melting pot, gets much colder, and is full of a different kind of underworld
than Kekon. One far less honorable. We get introduced to two more countries,
Uwiwa and Stepenland. Both countries have smaller roles in the story compared
to the other two but play no less of a role in how the world changes for No
Peak. Also, in her signature descriptive yet smooth writing style Fonda Lee
builds these two countries, Uwiwa another island country very similar to my
father’s homeland, the Philippines, and Stepenland an obviously Nordic country.
The small window that Lee gives to us of these countries acted like a seed that
used the information I know of these countries’ real world equivalents to sprout
into much larger mental images of the world. While the description of Uwiwa was
a bit of an oof, it was something very real to me.

The Uwiwans, Hilo thought, had the cunning look of a race that knew they were dependent on the might and wealth of outsiders and hated themselves for it. They could be the friendliest sort of people during the day, then steal your wallet cut your throat in the middle of the night.

“Kaul Hiloshudon” in the novel Jade City by Fonda Lee

I don’t want to get into the minute details of the countries
as I find that’s something that is a unique experience that should be experienced
for the first time by a reader and then cherished as these details influence
the characters through the rest of the book. All countries above play an
important role in the story and lives of the characters in the book, even
Ygutan (a version the USSR in my opinion) plays an important role. I will
however talk a bit about the characters we’re familiar in the book, introduce a
few more important ones, but like always I will try to keep it clean.

It’s still a Kaul story, but this time we delve into a few
more people in the family now. At this point, Hilo is the Pillar, and has grown
into his role much more than we had last met him. He’s still a different kind
of leader from Lan, but he’s much more comfortable in leaving responsibilities to
those around and under him. He’s still the fire at the center of No Peak, but
instead of being a raging flame that threatens to hurt those around him, he is more
akin to a smoldering flame: he is much calmer, in many ways much more useful to
the clan while still being capable of flaring into an inferno with the right kind
and amount of kindling… Shae has gotten used to her role as Weather Man, she
has far less issues with the senior Lantern Men and Luckbringers under her, and
she has been able to hone her sharp intellect from the previous book into a dangerous
weapon to use in the defense of No Peak. This is a tiny bit of a spoiler, but
we also get a look at the softer side of both of these characters. Hilo and Shae
have both evolved from the last time we saw them while still retaining who they
are. Things in the story, however, find a way to change them into something much
different than we are familiar with. Speaking of change, Anden plays a much larger
role in this story. He’s back from his exile, but then he gets exiled again,
this time to Espenia. He still refuses to use jade due to the fear of what kind
of monster it will make him and he’s still relatively unsure of himself. The
move to Espenia forces a change out of him, and by the time the story ends, he
has found who he wants to be, but not without great cost.

This brings me to what I believe one of the largest themes
of this book is: change. The last book had plenty of change, from clan
leadership to characters coming and going things changed quite a bit by the end
of Jady City. That said, much more changes during Jade War. There are quite
frankly shocking events that effect almost every main character in the story,
and the best part about this is nothing feels forced or fake. Every character
has a reason to act the way they do; every situation plays out in a way that is
reasonable, believable, and based firmly in reality. It’s no small praise to
say that this is largely possible due to Fonda Lee’s incredibly weaving of characters,
countries, and clans. It’s not quite a line of dominos, more akin to a game of
pachinko, where one event sets off other events but often not in the way people
think. The characters can try to change the direction of their lives, but
sometimes fate doesn’t give a shit and does what it wants. There is one event
that focuses on Shae that made me step back and think for a second, but upon
putting myself into the shoes of a Kekonese leader, it makes some sense. Perhaps
a special kind of Hilo sense, but still reasonable. Needless to say,
every character radically changes from the beginning of the book, and it’s
something anyone who loves character development should enjoy.

The themes of family and interdependence from the previous book
are still here and very important but as we get introduced to the other
countries and the story shifts there, specifically Espenia, we start to see
another theme. The theme of community when you’re in a country as a minority.
This theme is right up my alley for obvious reasons, and it’s lovingly
portrayed in the book. There’s a fantastic sense of community among the Kekonese
in Espenia, and I’m saddened to also say that there’s a very real feeling of
being discriminated against and outright racism as well. The Kekonese are new
to Espenia and like many cultural groups in a melting pot like the US or
Espenia, they’ve carved out their own worlds that both interact at the same
time and somehow stay mostly insular.

… he imagined it would be possible to survive in Port Massy without actually learning Espenian, by sticking closely with one’s own people.

“Emery Anden” in the novel Jade City by Fonda Lee

Anden is my favorite character this time around. As the adopted
and then exiled black sheep of the Kaul family, he has arguably the hardest
time adjusting to his new role in life. His development is arguably one of the
most real I’ve felt this year. He must make a lot of huge changes to adapt to a
new culture and eventually to a new way of feeling. The way he ends up feels a
tiny bit forced but to be honest the event that pushes his final major decision
and change makes perfect sense. Bero is an important who also has a big change
in his personality but personally, I think he’s still a dick. He gets to lower
lows than he did in Jade City, both in terms of what he does and how he feels
about himself as a person. One of these changes largely hints at what’s coming
next in Kekon.

Honestly this book is so dense and well written that it’s incredibly
difficult to get everything into a review without it becoming a novella itself.
I’ve been told that my reviews are bit too long-winded for most (if you agree
do let me know) but with a book that is his packed with information it’s hard
not to write for days. Like the previous book, Jade War is an Asian Urban/Modern
fantasy about family values, loyalty, and finding how live with danger
constantly at your throat. Oh, and don’t worry, there’s plenty of fantastically
written fight scenes. It feels like they’re much more tragedy and shocking
experiences in this book, with a deeper and perhaps more mature expression of
love and belonging than in Jade City. That isn’t to say that there isn’t
explicit erotic content (so it’s still not for kids) because it’s definitely
there. This book is easily my top read so far this year. The book delivered on
all my hopes for a sequel to Jade City, and more. Fonda Lee seems to be improving
as a writer (or at least I am improving as a reader) and truly look forward to
reading the next book in the series.

To put it sweet and simply: read this book. I’d be hard
pressed to find someone who doesn’t enjoy something about this book. Perhaps if
you have a complete aversion to violence, but that’s most likely it. Five out
of Five stars, 100% great reading for nearly anyone. An excellent example of a
sequel, fiction title, and character growth across a series.

Jade War comes out July 23rd. I’ve got it pre-ordered and if you’d like to support this blog, consider doing the same by grabbing it here. https://amzn.to/2lrS0fF